


Legion

by cruellae (tinkabelladk)



Series: Some things are always the same [2]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M, some gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 03:03:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20959391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinkabelladk/pseuds/cruellae
Summary: Yuffie and Sephiroth had assembled an army of Wutai and others who were fed up with Shinra's tyranny. Now, they were preparing to march on Midgar.Before the fighting started in earnest, Sephiroth embarked on a solo mission to disarm and destroy a Shinra lab. It was valuable and loosely guarded...or so their informant told them.Cloud forced the truth out of him later, when Sephiroth didn't return. The informant laughed as he listed the forces Shinra had raised to attack Sephiroth. A hundred infantry. Fifty sharpshooters. All forty-seven fighters in the SOLDIER Program. Angeal Hewley. And Hojo, armed with whatever vile substances he’d been making ever since Shinra learned of Sephiroth’s return.~A vignette, set about a year after Everything Changes. If you haven't read that story, you might be a little confused.~





	Legion

Cloud pushed hard on the accelerator, leaning into the wind as Fenrir tore up a long lonely stripe of highway leading to Midgar. His heartbeat felt like the thumping of chocobo hooves, racing in his chest. 

He should have known their intel was shitty from the start. But somehow they’d been led through one wrong turn and another, until the army they’d assembled to march on Shinra’s fortified territory was far to the west near the coast. 

They intended to take Midgar by surprise. But somehow Shinra knew they were coming. The Shinra informant had cleverly spun his story--Hojo’s secret laboratory, protected by a contingent of SOLDIER Thirds, hidden to the east. Perfect bait for Sephiroth to take a solo mission, drawing attention, while Yuffie led the armies to attack Midgar from the other side. 

But the forces they expected did not arrive to meet her army. There was enough infantry to make it look like a battle, but few enough that Shinra probably had at least one entire battalion in reserve. And not a single SOLDIER appeared.

The informant had told him the truth, then, as they cut easily through Shinra’s diminutive ranks. He laughed as he listed the forces Shinra had raised to attack Sephiroth. A hundred infantry. Fifty sharpshooters. All forty-seven fighters in the SOLDIER Program. Angeal Hewley. And Hojo, armed with whatever vile substances he’d been making ever since Shinra learned of Sephiroth’s return. 

Cloud watched the road curve before him and  _ prayed _ . 

#

The road ended in a barricade made of Shinra armored transports, hastily stopped. Cloud got off his bike and hurried around the bulky vehicles. 

The sight on the other side took his breath away. 

The hard dirt ground was slick and red with blood that had been spilled so prolifically it seemed to be welling up from somewhere beneath. Mangled bodies in blue uniforms were scattered haphazardly across the red soil, missing limbs or heads. 

There were so many of them. There were  _ so many.  _

Cloud was enveloped in utter silence. No groans, no dying gasps, no pleas for water or mother. The infantry battalion had been slaughtered to a man, the killing so artfully done that all were dead as soon as they hit the ground. 

Some of them were barely more than children--as old as Cloud had been when Shinra put a gun in his hand and told him to kill. 

Cloud felt like he was going to be sick. 

He pressed on, stepping gingerly between the bodies that carpeted the ground. The trail of blood led into a small valley, where instead of young troopers, the bodies were larger and heavy with muscle, each wearing a SOLDIER’s uniform. Their weapons were more varied too, but had not been enough to save them. Cloud counted the bodies as he walked by, noting the way that each had fallen. He had no way of knowing if any of the blood was Sephiroth’s, but the scattered and broken black feathers made his heart catch in his throat. 

Forty seven SOLDIERs in total, twisted in their dying agonies, fear and betrayal etched on their features. 

He’d reached the lowest point of the valley, now. A body was pinned to the lone dead tree by a katana through the shoulder. 

Angeal Hewley. 

Cloud peered more closely at him. He wasn’t dead, but appeared to be under the influence of a sleep spell. 

_ Of all the people you could have saved, why him?  _

Cloud squared his shoulders, turned his back on the red valley of corpses, and walked through the twist in the canyon before him, following the trail of blood and feathers. 

It led him onto a plateau just beyond, where a small cabin stood alone against the barren landscape. He hurried towards it, cautiously pushing the door open. 

The cabin was warm and homey, a fire crackling in the fireplace to fight off the early evening chill. Cloud walked down a short hallway and stood in the door to the bedroom, frozen with shock.

Sephiroth was laying on his stomach, his wing fully extended over the large bed, white bandages wrapped around the lower half of his bare torso. Beside him were some bloody rags and two empty potion bottles. A figure in a white coat was leaning over his wing with a pair of large tweezers.

“Get away from him,” Cloud said. The hallway wasn’t wide or tall enough for him to draw his sword, so he went for the knife in his boot instead. 

“This is delicate work, and I’d thank you not to interrupt me.” 

_ That voice…Cloud knew it from years spent barely conscious, drifting in and out of mako-tinged slumber.  _

“Don’t touch him,” Cloud said, trembling with anger. “Don’t you fucking dare.” 

Hojo sighed, turning to face him. “There’s no need for theatrics. Would you really prefer I not remove the bullets embedded in the muscle of his wing?”

“I would prefer you not come within a hundred miles of him,” Cloud growled. “You fucking monster.”

“Cloud?” Sephiroth’s voice was low and slightly slurred. “I didn’t know you were here.” 

Cloud narrowed his eyes at Hojo. “What did you give him?” 

“Chocobo tranquilizers,” Hojo said, returning to his task. “Your concern is unnecessary. I have been treating Sephiroth his entire life. I know how to give him an anesthetic.” 

Cloud bit his tongue as Hojo’s hands--clad in bloodstained vinyl gloves--descended into a matted portion of Sephiroth’s feathers. Sephiroth’s wing gave a slight twitch when Hojo applied the tweezers, pulling a bullet free in a quick, fluid motion. 

“There. That’s the last of them.” Hojo set the bloody piece of lead beside a handful of others on a cracked blue plate, then turned to Cloud. “Now make yourself useful. Cast a Cure and then attend to his feathers.” 

“Okay,” Cloud said warily. “But then we have to talk.” 

Hojo nodded brusquely, stripping off his gloves as he went out into the kitchen. 

Cloud cast a Curaga, and then turned his attention to Sephiroth’s wing. It was bedraggled, with matted, blood covered clumps of feathers wherever the bullets had landed. He took his time with it, carefully preening the feathers, then gently rubbing away the worst of the blood with a damp towel. He focused only on his task, and tried not to think about the mass grave just outside the cabin, or the fact that if he concentrated, he could hear Hojo humming in the kitchen. 

When he finished, he ran his hand gently down Sephiroth’s back, then started to get up. 

Sephiroth reached out and caught him by the wrist. “Don’t leave,” he murmured, still clearly under the influence of something. 

“I’m not leaving,” Cloud said. “I’m just going to talk to Hojo.” 

It took a moment before Sephiroth released him. “If you left me I think I’d summon another meteor,” he murmured. 

Cloud hoped that was just the effects of the tranquilizers, but a chill ran down his spine all the same. 

Out in the kitchen, Hojo was feeding celery into a juicer. Cloud walked into the small space and shoved Hojo back against the counter, pressing his knife to the professor’s throat. 

“This is highly unnecessary,” Hojo said, sounding more disgruntled than afraid. 

“Don’t you ever come near Sephiroth again,” Cloud growled. “You’ve fucked with him enough.” 

“I gave Sephiroth the very best I had to offer,” Hojo said.

“He was a child and you treated him like an experiment.” 

Hojo stared at him impassively. “The past is between Sephiroth and I. You have no place in this discussion.” 

Cloud took a deep breath, steadying himself. Maybe that was true. He wasn’t really sure anymore. He felt overwhelmed and raw from the events of the afternoon--the desperate fear that Sephiroth might be dead, the painful shock of seeing the carnage outside, and the memories that Hojo’s voice brought floating back to the surface. 

He pulled the knife away. “You still owe me an explanation of what’s going on here.” 

“When Sephiroth wakes up, we’ll talk,” Hojo said. 

#

As lucidity returned to him, Sephiroth could hear only silence from beyond the door. He felt surprisingly intact for someone who had just taken on an army. Thank Hojo for that. And Cloud...had Cloud been here, or was that just his imagination? 

He got up, letting his wing dematerialize so he could move more easily through the small abode. In the next room, Cloud was sitting on the couch with a knife gleaming on the table before him, his blue eyes icy with anger as he tracked Hojo’s every movement. Hojo was in the kitchen, fixing the same disgustingly healthy vegetable juice he used to make Sephiroth drink when he was a child. 

Cloud didn’t get up to greet Sephiroth. He just picked up the knife Sephiroth knew he could throw with deadly accuracy and kept his eyes on Hojo. There was something hollow and haunted in his gaze.

“You owe me an explanation,” he said, his voice flat and distant. 

“Cloud…” 

“You knew.” Cloud didn’t turn to look at him. “You knew Shinra would send their army after you.” 

“Yes,” Sephiroth said. There didn’t seem to be any sense in denying it now. 

“And Hojo?” Cloud’s voice was choked. “Is he part of this plan?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why? What were you even trying to accomplish?” 

Sephiroth hesitated. “That’s...on a need to know basis, Cloud. All of this was.” 

Cloud finally turned to look at him, eyes glowing with fury. “So what, you lied to me because it’s some kind of strategy?” 

“It’s not a lie,” Sephiroth said. “It’s how an army is led. I keep my own counsel, Cloud. I always have.” 

He was aware that Hojo was watching this entire exchange, that Hojo would probably be both annoyed and amused at the weaknesses in Sephiroth that were made evident by Cloud’s very presence. 

“Sephiroth,” Cloud said, his voice a flat whisper. “You killed  _ so many  _ people. Some of them were barely more than kids.” 

“You signed up for a war, Cloud,” Sephiroth said, his temper flaring. 

The fight against Shinra’s armies had taken several grueling hours, the Masamune slick with blood that ran down its gleaming length and coated his hands. The groans of the dying in the desert heat, most of them too stubborn to run, even when they saw they had no chance of victory. The SOLDIERS, several of whom had been Seconds and Thirds serving under him, once upon a time, each a testament to hundreds and hundreds of hours of training and care, ended abruptly by his blade. 

Angeal, who had once been a paragon of honor, but who Sephiroth in his madness had twisted into a being of hate. 

And the infantry troopers, many of them trembling with fright, but they didn’t run.  _ Why hadn’t they run?  _ Towards the end of it, delirious with exhaustion, he started to imagine that Cloud’s face was under one of those helmets, sixteen year old Cloud with blood on his lips, falling to his knees in the Wutai mud.

But even that had not stopped him from slaughtering them all. 

“Not anymore,” Cloud said, shoving the knife into his boot sheath and getting up. “I quit.” 

He grabbed the Buster Sword and walked out the door, slamming it behind him. 

#

Cloud Strife was a failed experiment in every single way, Hojo reflected. Perhaps the whole endeavor had been doomed from the start, as his motives had not been entirely scientific when he began creating a second Jenova-enhanced boy. 

In truth, only one “son” of Jenova was necessary, so long as he was strong enough to bear her gifts. Sephiroth had the strength, the purity, and the perfection that was required. There had been no rational reason for Hojo to make another. And yet he had. 

There was no rational reason for Sephiroth to look so bereft as the door closed behind Cloud either, but he did. 

“He’ll come back,” Hojo said. “You and I have plans to attend to.” 

“He might not,” Sephiroth answered, his eyes lingering on the door. 

“You are acting like a child,” Hojo said sharply. He raised Sephiroth to be smart and ruthless, not a sentimental fool. 

Sephiroth turned towards him, studying him carefully. Even as a child, he’d always had an unnerving sort of perceptiveness to those unnatural green eyes. Hojo used to wake in the middle of the night to see the infant in the crib beside his bed watching him like a predator watches prey, silent and assessing. 

“What do you care?” he said, finally. “Jenova is gone. I have nothing left to appease your scientific curiosity. So why not let me be?” 

Instead of answering that ridiculous plea for affirmation, Hojo reached for the cup of celery juice on the counter and held it out to Sephiroth. “Drink. Your body is replenishing itself.” 

Sephiroth crossed his arms and shook his head, with an expression Hojo recognized from twenty years worth of attempts to get him to cut his hair. 

“Sephiroth,” he said, chiding. “Now you really are acting like a child.” 

“Answer a question for me first,” Sephiroth said. 

Hojo nodded, but reluctantly. 

“Did you love my mother?”

Hojo stared at him, at the boy whose profile looked so much like Lucrecia’s on the rare instances that he pulled his hair back from his face. He didn’t have much else of hers, not her laugh or her smile or her bright flashing eyes. But every so often it seemed like an echo of hers would appear in some mannerism or posture.

“Lucrecia,” Sephiroth said. “Did you love her?” 

“Yes,” Hojo said, because the answer was probably obvious enough. 

“I thought maybe you hated her,” Sephiroth said, with a slight frown. “Because you never even told me her name.” 

Hojo shook his head. “It was an effort to make you more receptive to Jenova.” 

That answer was a lie, but kinder than the truth. Hojo had not taken Sephiroth from his mother for Jenova’s sake--the plan was always to raise the child together, himself and Lucrecia, for the great destiny they envisioned. Hojo had separated them for Sephiroth’s sake--and his safety. Lucrecia had become convinced that Sephiroth would be a danger to the planet itself, and by the time he was born she had started to believe his death was the only way to prevent a calamity. 

She had never loved Sephiroth, not even on the day he was born. If Hojo erased her from Sephroth’s life as completely as possible, it was because she did not deserve such a son. 

“Thank you for telling me,” Sephiroth said, gravely. 

Hojo nodded brusquely. “Drink your juice and let’s go over our plans. Then you are free to chase after that boy.” 

He remembered when the Turks brought him an almost-dead Cloud Strife, with mud still clinging to his Shinra trooper uniform. He knew, even then, that making another Jenova-cell enhanced creature was dangerous. But he also knew the burden and pain of solitude--a burden he did not want Sephiroth to bear. Cloud Strife had been meant to serve as a companion, someone with enhanced strength and a connection to Jenova who could remain by Sephiroth’s side. And yet he had become a rogue element that Hojo could neither predict or contain, even now. 

_ That’s where sentimentality gets you,  _ Hojo thought.  _ My plans all failed because neither Sephiroth nor I learned that lesson well enough.  _

#

Cloud sat on the bed in a cheap inn room in Kalm, watching Shinra broadcast their propaganda on the TV. 

He felt a little better, a little more grounded, after a few hours of riding Fenrir across the lonely highway that ran south of Midgar and then past it up to Kalm. As he rode, the scenery changed from the dry, cracked desert that surrounded the city to open fields and green rolling hills, and the ache in his heart subsided enough that he’d been able to send a message to Sephiroth when he arrived. Then he settled in to wait. 

After about two hours, he heard a soft knock on the door, and got up to let Sephiroth in. 

“Hey,” he said. 

“Cloud.” Sephiroth hesitated. “Tell me what you need from me.” 

“I don’t know.” Cloud ran his hand through his hair, frowning anxiously. “I just--I can’t believe how many people you killed today.”

“That surprises me,” Sephiroth said. “I thought you knew what I was capable of.” 

“No,” Cloud said. “Guess I didn’t.” 

Sephiroth nodded. His countenance was arrogant, cold. “I am capable of killing as many as it takes to achieve my goals.” 

Cloud didn’t know how to answer that. This was not the Sephiroth of his nightmares--that apparition grinned maniacally and spoke fervently of “Mother” and summoned fire from the sky. But this was also not the man he had fallen in love with. This serene angel of death was a side of Sephiroth he’d only seen once before, briefly, before he’d nearly bled out into the mud in Wutai. He’d thought Sephiroth had changed, but maybe he had been hiding it all this time. 

“What if it’s not worth it?” Cloud asked. 

Sephiroth considered that for a moment. “If Shinra is not destroyed, I will never be free, and you will never be safe.” 

Cloud stepped back, crossing his arms. “Don’t put this on me. Don’t make this my fault.” 

“It’s not your fault,” Sephiroth said. “You have always had a pure heart, Cloud. Let me be the monster, so that you won’t have to.” 

Cloud’s breath caught in his throat as he finally understood. “You lied to me and went there alone and  _ almost died _ because you were protecting me?” 

“It’s irrational, I know. And yet I can’t seem to stop myself. You really are my weakness, just like Hojo says.” 

_ That fucker.  _ Hojo’s name alone was enough to make Cloud momentarily hot with rage.

“I love you, Cloud,” Sephiroth continued. “But love has no place on a battlefield. I intend to win this war, no matter the cost.” 

Cloud took a deep breath and scrubbed his hand over his face. “I don’t know what to say to that.” 

Sephiroth closed the distance between them, brushing his fingertips over Cloud’s cheek. “Say you trust me.” 

He opened up the connection between their minds--the connection that had once been used to coerce Cloud into handing over the Black Materia, but had recently become something entirely different. Now, neither of them could command the other, but they could feel each other’s emotions so vividly it was sometimes overwhelming. 

Now Cloud felt the warmth and love and want that was always there between them. But he felt something else in Sephiroth’s heart too, a sensation he’d never seen Sephiroth experience before, an emotion he thought Sephiroth was incapable of. 

_ Fear.  _

Fear that Cloud would turn and walk away, that what was between them would break apart and leave him with nothing but bitterness. 

“Sometimes I need a reminder that you’re human,” Cloud said, looking up at him. 

Sephiroth gave him the slightest of smiles. “Sometimes I do too.” 

Cloud put his arms around Sephiroth’s neck, pulling him a little closer. “I won’t let you forget it.” 

“Hmm.” Sephiroth pressed his forehead gently to Cloud’s. “Will you say it, then?” 

Cloud smiled. He never refused this request. “I love you,” he said. 

Sephiroth closed his eyes, a small but genuine smile on his face. 

“Do you want to watch some of Shinra’s shitty propaganda with me?” Cloud asked, gently pulling back. 

“Always,” Sephiroth said. 

They sat together on the bed, Cloud leaning into Sephiroth, and watched the Shinra news anchor try to spin the recent military actions into something that uplifted the company’s image. Sephiroth pressed his lips to the top of Cloud’s head and held him closer. 

It felt good, like warmth and contentment and closeness. After everything they’d been through, didn’t they deserve a little selfishness? A few stolen moments that were just for the two of them? 

_ If you left me I think I’d summon another meteor. _

Cloud knew Sephiroth well enough to understand what he meant. That he was the one holding back the darkness that would always be in Sephiroth, the result of Jenova’s blessing and Hojo’s nurturing. That he was Sephiroth’s lover and also his jailor, keeping his other self from emerging. 

But it didn’t really matter, because this quiet moment was its own reason and its own reward. 

“I love you,” he whispered again, if only to hear Sephiroth’s soft intake of breath--he never seemed to get tired of hearing that. Maybe it was because Cloud was the first and only person to ever say it to him. 

It reminded Cloud that while Sephiroth was a monster, he was also so much more.


End file.
